"Security firm G4S finally accepted full responsibility late last night for the fiasco over providing guards for the Olympics. … In an extraordinary admission of failure, the company said it now stands to lose up to £50million on the deal. … The firm hurried out a statement, saying it ‘deeply regrets’ the mistakes which led to 3,500 servicemen being summoned at the 11th hour to plug gaps in its Olympics security operation. The admission apparently followed heated discussions with furious Home Office officials." – Daily Mail

"Lord Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organising committee (Locog), said on Friday that he could not rule out asking for the current deployment of 17,000 to be increased. … Senior military officers told The Daily Telegraph this week that they expect up to 20,000 uniformed personnel to be involved in the Olympic operation." – Daily Telegraph

"In case the Olympic security shambles wasn’t embarrassing enough for G4S, the firm’s toe-curling corporate song makes them look even more stupid. … Lyrics to the cheesy rock number include: 'We’re guarding you with all our might'." – Sun editorial

"Five MPs will be joined by five peers, including the former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, in a five-month inquiry into the Libor rate-fixing scandal. … The five peers are expected to be Lord Lawson, for whom Mr Tyrie acted as a ministerial aide in the 1980s, Lord McFall of Alcluith for Labour, Baroness Kramer for the Liberal Democrats, Lord Turnbull, the former Cabinet Secretary and a crossbencher, and the Bishop of Durham." – The Times (£)

"It would be a mistake to overplay the significance of MPs John Mann and Andrea Leadsom being left out of the line-up. True, both won plaudits for their performance on the Treasury committee in recent weeks. But talk of a conspiracy to select only the compliant is far-fetched. … Even so, there is still a danger here. Whether justified or not, such a hue and cry threatens to undermine the credibility of the investigation before it even starts." – Independent editorial

"David Cameron and Nick Clegg will join forces next week to declare that the government is to embark on the biggest investment in the rail network since the Victorian era as ministers move to demonstrate their commitment to boosting economic growth. … In an attempt to show a renewed sense of purpose, after last week's bruising rows over Lords reform, the prime minister and his deputy will announce the electrification of a series of lines and the symbolic reversal of some closures imposed in the 1960s by the Beeching axe." – Guardian

The newspapers continue to sift through the wreckage of the Lords reform vote

In what witnesses said was a demonstration of ‘intense controlled rage’, the Prime Minister expressed ‘outrage’ that he had referred to him that way in the email. Accusing Mr Norman of gross disloyalty, the Prime Minister ended his rant saying: 'You have behaved dishonourably.' – From Andrew Pierce's extended account of this week's Tory rebellion, Daily Mail

"Tory rebels are to keep in close touch over the summer to ensure they are not outmanoeuvred by the Government in the battle over Lords reform." – Independent

"[Cameron] starts to look like a one-term prime minister, because the Conservative Party is already visibly moving away from him, leaving him stranded with only those cronies who, by being completely tied to him, have as much to lose as he does." – Simon Heffer, Daily Mail

"If [team-building] doesn’t work … then Mr Cameron should … do what he needs and, one imagines, wants to do – tell Mr Clegg that Lords reform will never clear Parliament, so the issue must, alas, be dropped. While he’s at it, he might propose an EU referendum for the date of the general election, and defy the Lib Dems and Labour to vote it down in the Commons – and then never lose an opportunity, between now and that date, to highlight the constraints on his ability to govern as a Tory while the country denies him a majority." – Graeme Archer, Daily Telegraph

"The surprising thing, if you do read Mr Clegg’s speech, is that even he could not make a coherent case for the bill. Its most innovative aspect is that members of his reformed House would be elected for a non-renewable term of 15 years. This involves two staggering leaps into fantasy. Fifteen years is more than a third of an average working life. Had it existed in 1997 the nation would only now be getting rid of people elected in the Blairite landslide. It is democracy from the school of Hosni Mubarak." – Matthew Engel, Financial Times (£)

"If Mr Cameron were to act on the assumption that his was to be a single-term government the resulting decisiveness would, in fact, increase his chance of winning a second term." – Times (£) editorial

"Everyone expects him to reshuffle his Cabinet in September. But I am told he is letting Osborne take the lead in planning appointments. … The truth is that Cameron needs something very different from a shuffle planned by chums for chums. … The first man to be axed should be Mr Osborne with at least three more 'chums' – discredited Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, shrill party chairman Lady Warsi and hopeless Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman – also on the hit list." – Patrick O'Flynn, Daily Express

"What about the workers, then? Work is the first building block for owning the society of which you are a citizen. When better times come, the worker starts to own other things as well as his or her labour – a house, a pension and other savings, perhaps some shares. The word 'ownership' is a key concept for the health of any advanced society, yet the Coalition has almost no policies for advancing it. Under socialism, the state grabs property, and calls it ownership in the name of the people. If the people can no longer own things through their own efforts, then socialism will appeal to them once again." – Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

Matthew Parris: The Army hasn't pulled out of Afghanistan. So why have we?

"British casualties now stand at 422. Three more of our soldiers were killed last week. Since the decision was taken to withdraw from this conflict by 2015 there has most emphatically not been a downward trend in British deaths in Afghanistan (I’ll come to the figures in a moment) and yet I have the impression — I wonder if you share it? — that this continuing war is receding from the news." – Matthew Parris, The Times (£)

US officials discussed their Libor "misreporting" fears with Mervyn King in 2008 – Daily Telegraph

Universities are upping their use of entrance exams to identify the best candidates – Daily Telegraph

A third of first-time buyers are aged 35 or over, compared to one-in-ten a decade ago – Daily Mail

It was 9 SAS men against a 400-strong rebel army – Lord Ashcroft writes about the Battle of Mirbat, Daily Express

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